Page:The way of Martha and the way of Mary (1915).djvu/170

148 And on the road of life itself there is a great gulf between the vigorous and Teutonic "Welcome each rebuff that turns earth smoothness rough" and the morbid and Oscar Wildean "living with sorrow," a great gulf between Father Seraphim kneeling a thousand days on a rock, and the sad "intelligent" who reads to himself in the evening hour:

To stand like Sebastiàn shot through with arrows,

Without strength to breathe,

To stand like Sebastiàn shot through with arrows

In shoulder and breast.

Tolstoy in his later years was morbid. I suppose if the psychology of Tolstoy's life were to be followed out we should be surprised at the frequent recurrence of morbid and despondent moods. Nothing seems more characteristic of his later years than fruitless quarrelling with the life of Yasnaya Polyana, threatening to run away, lamentations, self-lacerations. But now and again in relief Tolstoy did actually flee. He took the road to Moscow to live like a simple artisan and earn his living by carpentering, or he set off for a monastery where some famous monk lived in his cell, and sought relief by confession and Christian intercourse.

That going forth on the road, a-seeking new life, is characteristic. At times one would think half Russia is on the road. Utility has been flung aside, the chances of gain have been passed over, the so-called duty to work and fulfil your place in the state has been flung to the winds, and the Russian is out